She is back in the same spot she finds herself every night, facing her own judge, jury, and eventual executioner. Her eyes slowly move upward and in a quiet voice she whispers, "Mirror, Mirror on the wall who is the most perfect of them all"?
There the girl stands waiting for her answer, she is starved, broken, and her arms drip the only tears she is allowed to cry. Everyday she waits for the mirror to tell her she is finally perfect because once she is perfect the punishment will finally stop, but the mirror only shows her more pain, more weakness, and more imperfections. Flashes of her loved ones begin haunting her reflection telling her what she isn't....she isn't "pretty enough", a good enough daughter, a good enough student, wife, mother, friend, and the list keeps going. She see the faces of all the people she lets down on a daily basis, and each face she feels another crack in her. The girl wonders how long it takes for you to cracked enough to shatter.
She has spent years trying to silence her pain, trying to be normal, and everyday she finds herself alone, in front of that mirror...awaiting her verdict. She tells herself to keep smiling, keep hiding the hurt, people don't want to deal with her problems..."solider up"! She can't cry, she can't fall apart, or scream...no one would understand. This is her pain and she has learned how to control it...the girl decide what hurts her and how bad, at least that is what the mirror says.
As her heart rate rises the pain hits her like bricks, and the girl can't breathe. As she falls to her knees her hands grab the razor sitting beside her...she has to make it stop, it has to get out, or she will never breathe again. As her flesh begins to weep she tries to take a breath, but the bricks are still there...it isn't working. The panic sets in and her crimson tears turn into a river. Her heart still races as she thinks, "this can't be happening". There is no release, no numbness...she feels everything. Her mirror has betrayed her, and as her eyes glace upward she sees herself, she can see her life running out of her. The girl in the mirror is dying, it always told her it would come with a price, but she hadn't cared. All the girl ever wanted was to be perfect, to be worth enough, and to make all that hurt go away. All this time as the numbers on the scale went down, as she watched those red tear drops on her pale flesh, or swallowed a handful of pills she thought she was purifying herself from her pain, becoming perfect. Now the truth is staring her in the eyes, all this time she thought the mirror was giving her the perfection she desperately sought, but it was all a lie. With each pound, each cut, and each pill a little bit more of her chipped away, and she was about to have the last piece of her pulled out leaving her a shell that once held a soul.
The girl is now laying in front of the mirror feeling herself slip away, not sure she can even manage a weak cry for help. But, wait there is no help, this battle is between her and the reflection that mirror has shown her for years. No one can save her, no one can see what she does, the monster ripping her life away. As she closes her eyes in surrender something happens, for only a second she sees images of herself smiling, truly laughing, she is a wife, a mother, a loved daughter, and though her pain is still there she sees for the first time happiness and acceptance. The images don't last, they begin to fade.
The girl struggles to her knees to face the mirror once again, and it immediately tries to crush her back down. "You are nothing, you could never be perfect...you deserve this". With the last piece of strength she has the girl screams, "NO"! at the top of her lungs as her fist crashes into the mirror. In an instant, the mirror that had tortured her for so long became nothing but shattered glass powerless to hurt her anymore. As she pulled herself to her feet and dusted the glass off herself, though she was bloodied and broken, for the first time she was free. A number would not define her day, a razor would not define her night, no more would she cry those crimson tears alone in the dark, and no more monsters would ever hallow her out again.
There would still be bad moments, she may stumble, maybe even fall, she would be scarred, but she would survive. She would never again let anyone tear her down for her scars, the places where she has been broken and pieced back together...the girl has been in battle, the toughest battle of them all...the battle of her life. She said, "NO"! to the lies and faced her pain head on to win her life back. She is more than all the hurt, more than all the judgments people have thrown at her, and has been shown that she can be loved. She is stronger than she ever thought she could be even in the moments when those old lies make their way back in she just stops, shuts her eyes, and screams, "NO"!
What will it take for you to break the mirror?
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